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CVE-2026-13216
The virtio PCI driver (drivers/virtio/virtio_pci.c) parses a device's PCI capability list during driver initialization. In virtio_pci_read_cap() the device-supplied capability length byte cap_len (read from PCI config space via pcie_conf_read()) was only checked with assert(tmp.cap_len == cap_struct_size). That assert resolves to __ASSERT_NO_MSG(), gated by CONFIG_ASSERT, which defaults off in production builds, so the value reached the copy logic completely unvalidated.
The length then drives a loop that copies extra capability dwords into a fixed-size stack buffer supplied by the caller. A cap_len below the 24-byte base struct virtio_pci_cap underflows the unsigned extra_data_words count to a near-SIZE_MAX value, producing an effectively unbounded stack write; a cap_len above the caller's buffer (up to 255) writes up to roughly 228 bytes of device-controlled data past the buffer. Both are out-of-bounds writes of attacker-controlled content executed in kernel mode during boot-time device probe.
The input originates from the virtio device. In the common deployment where Zephyr runs as a guest under a hypervisor, the device backend is the host, which already fully outranks the guest, so the bug yields no privilege escalation. The exploitable case is a virtio device that is untrusted relative to the Zephyr kernel — an untrusted or physical/passthrough virtio PCIe device on a bare-metal system, or a confidential-computing posture where the guest must defend against the host — where a malicious device can corrupt the kernel stack and potentially achieve code execution or a crash.
The fix replaces the compiled-out assert with a runtime range check rejecting cap_len outside [sizeof(struct virtio_pci_cap), cap_struct_size] before any arithmetic or copy.
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The vulnerability requires physical access to the device to be exploited. It is easy for an attacker to exploit this vulnerability. An attacker does not need any special privileges or access rights. No user interaction is needed for the attacker to exploit this vulnerability. The impact is confined to the system where the vulnerability exists. There is a high impact on the integrity of the data. There is a high impact on the availability of the system.
Exploitation attempts have been detected. Elevated vigilance and prompt remediation are advised.
The exploit probability is very low. The vulnerability is unlikely to be exploited in the next 30 days.
We did not find any exploit available. Neither in GitHub repositories nor in the Exploit-Database.
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